This invention generally relates to a method for displaying warranty information and more particularly to a method for allowing selective access to warranty information while concomitantly providing a visual warning indicator in the event that the warranty information evidences the existence of potentially undesirable product characteristics and/or attributes.
Warranty information generally includes relatively detailed data concerning alleged malfunctions and/or complaints about one or more products. Typically, a manufacturer or supplier of these products frequently desires to analyze this information in order to evaluate these concerns, to monitor the overall quality of the produced products, and to determine whether these products include undesirable attributes and/or characteristics. Moreover, many manufacturers desire to periodically view the amount and type of such claims in order to ensure that the overall quality of the products remains acceptable and/or to determine the cause of these complaints. Particularly, once the cause of the complaints has properly been identified, certain portions of the product manufacturing process may then be modified in order to eliminate these undesirable product attributes and/or characteristics. Certain components may also be replaced and/or modified to achieve a similar objective.
Hence, it is desirable to quickly determine whether a relatively large amount of warranty claims or complaints about a product have been received in order that a manufacturer or provider of the product may quickly ascertain whether the product has certain undesirable features or characteristics, and in order to allow the manufacturer to quickly modify the product in order to eliminate these undesirable features or characteristics.
While some methods do exist and are somewhat effective to allow a manufacturer or other business enterprise to view warranty information, such methods do not quickly notify the enterprise or manufacturer of an undesirable increase in warranty claims and do not efficiently provide the enterprise or the manufacturer with the actual claim information. Rather, these methods typically require that the warranty information be collected over a relatively long period of time (i.e. a month) and subsequently analyzed and reported. This xe2x80x9cdelayxe2x80x9d in warranty reporting frequently prevents or hinders an enterprise from correcting these undesirable product characteristics and causes the enterprise and/or manufacturer to continue to produce such undesirable products during this xe2x80x9cdelayxe2x80x9d, thereby increasing the amount of products which must be serviced.
There is therefore a need for a method for quickly and efficiently providing warranty claim information to a business enterprise or a manufacturer, effective to allow the manufacturer to ascertain the source of the claims and to efficiently address these claims. There is further a need for a method for providing a timely warning to a manufacturer or business enterprise of an undesirable increase in warranty claims related to a product.
It is a first object of the present invention to provide a method for providing warranty information which overcomes at least some of the previously delineated drawbacks of prior methods.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a method for providing warranty information which overcomes at least some of the previously delineated drawbacks of prior methods and which selectively and timely displays such information to a business enterprise or product manufacturer/provider.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide a method for providing warranty information in a manner which overcomes at least some of the previously delineated drawbacks of prior methods and which further provides a warning indicator of an unacceptably high volume or number of received warranty claims.
According to a first aspect of the present invention a method for use with a plurality of warranty claims is provided. The method includes the steps of counting the plurality of warranty claims; and generating an indicator of one of at least two colors based upon the count.
According to a second aspect of the present invention a method for use with a plurality of warranty claims related to a certain type of product is provided. The method includes the steps of determining the existence of an undesirable attribute of the certain product by use of the plurality of warranty claims; and creating a certain indicator of a certain color upon the determination of the existence of the undesirable attribute.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the invention and by reference to the following drawings.